Gale climbed the lava slope, away round to the right of the arroyo,
along an old trail that Yaqui said the Papagos had made before his own
people had hunted there. Part way it led through spiked, crested,
upheaved lava that would have been almost impassable even without its
silver coating of choya cactus. There were benches and ledges and
ridges bare and glistening in the sun. From the crests of these
Yaqui's searching falcon gaze roved near and far for signs of sheep,
and Gale used his glass on the reaches of lava that slanted steeply
upward to the corrugated peaks, and down over endless heave and roll
and red-waved slopes. The heat smoked up from the lava, and this, with
the red color and the shiny choyas, gave the impression of a world of
smoldering fire.
Farther along the slope Yaqui halted and crawled behind projections to
a point commanding a view over an extraordinary section of country.
The peaks were off to the left. In the foreground were gullies,
ridges, and canyons, arroyos, all glistening with choyas and some other
and more numerous white bushes, and here and there towered a green
cactus. This region was only a splintered and more devastated part of
the volcanic slope, but it was miles in extent. Yaqui peeped over the
top of a blunt block of lava and searched the sharp-billowed
wilderness. Suddenly he grasped Gale and pointed across a deep wide
gully.
With the aid of his glass Gale saw five sheep. They were much larger
than he had expected, dull brown in color, and two of them were rams
with great curved horns. They were looking in his direction.
Remembering what he had heard about the wonderful eyesight of these
mountain animals, Gale could only conclude that they had seen the
hunters.
Then Yaqui's movements attracted and interested him. The Indian had
brought with him a red scarf and a mesquite branch. He tied the scarf
to the stick, and propped this up in a crack of the lava. The scarf
waved in the wind. That done, the Indian bade Gale watch.
Once again he leveled the glass at the sheep. All five were
motionless, standing like statues, heads pointed across the gully. They
were more than a mile distant. When Gale looked without his glass they
merged into the roughness of the lava. He was intensely interested.
Did the sheep see the red scarf? It seemed incredible, but nothing
else could account for that statuesque alertness. The sheep held this
rigid position for perhaps fifteen minutes. Then the leading ram
started to approach. The others followed. He took a few steps, then
halted. Always he held his head up, nose pointed.
"By George, they're coming!" exclaimed Gale. "They see that flag.
They're hunting us. They're curious. If this doesn't beat me!"
Evidently the Indian understood, for he grunted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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